A Trip Down Grocery Store Memory Lane: Stories from the Family Business

When Trust—and Counterchecks—Ruled

If you never heard of a countercheck, you’re not alone. On the podcast, Tom was floored by the concept. But let me tell you, back in the day, it was just how things worked: You could walk into the store, fill out a generic check, and walk out with your groceries—no plastic cards, just your word and your reputation. Everyone in town knew each other, and if you bounced a check, you didn’t just owe the bank—you owed the whole town an explanation! As casual as it seemed, trust was everything, and if you ended up on the “bad check” list, you could bet every cashier, and probably your grandma, knew about it.

Loyalty Programs: From Green Stamps to Bankroll

Way before loyalty apps tracked your every purchase, we had Green Stamps (and Gold Bond too). You’d get these little stamps with every grocery run, stick them in a booklet, and save up for toasters, baby cribs—you name it—at special redemption stores. It was an event when you finally “cashed in” a booklet. And when Green Stamps faded away (along with the groans from those of us who paid the stamp company), we cooked up new schemes, like our Bankroll contest. All you had to do was come in and punch your card every week for a chance at a cash prize. If nobody claimed it, the pot kept growing. Honestly, those promotions brought a lot of laughs (and more than a few headaches) but above all, they kept our customers coming back.

Getting Hands-On—The Old-Fashioned Way

If you think grocery store life is all beeping scanners and neatly stacked pallets, well, it sure wasn’t always like that. We hand-labeled every can and box, updated prices with greasy pencils or Garvey markers, and spent hours sticking new price labels over old ones any time something changed. Big deliveries meant bracing yourself for boxes coming down a roller or stacking heavy potatoes and catching watermelons by hand (praying you didn’t drop one).

Don’t even get me started on the meat department. Before ribeyes showed up perfectly packaged, we were butchering whole quarters of beef, hauling them around covered in grease, all while wearing white aprons that never stayed white for long. No gym memberships required—if you worked in groceries, you stayed strong by necessity!

Tech Creeps In: Credit Cards, VCRs, and All That Jazz

Things started looking “modern” in the ‘80s—at least, that’s what we thought. VCR rentals were the hot new thing, and overnight, the grocery store became the spot to grab a movie (and, yep, the VCR to play it if you didn’t own one yet). Lines for movie night were out the door, and every tape was back by Sunday night, guaranteed. As for credit cards, reconciliation meant stacks of slips, calculator marathons, and hoping the numbers would finally match at the end of the day. Later, when cash registers and card machines finally started chatting to each other, we all breathed a sigh of relief.

Oh, and yes—we even had nights where the power went out and everything was done by flashlight and calculator. You gotta do what you gotta do, right?

Looking Back—and Hearing from You!

Thinking about all this, I can’t help but smile. Sure, doing things the hard way was, well, hard—but it pushed us to get creative, stay connected to our customers, and learn as we went. Every weird promotion, every hand-written check, every spilled potato built the kind of business (and community) I’ll always be proud of.

If you grew up in a family business, have memories from your own “back in my day” grocery trips, or just want to ask about anything from Garvey markers to Green Stamps, I’d love to hear from you! Leave a comment, shoot me an email at [email protected], or tune in to our next episode for more stories from the aisles.

And seriously—don’t be a stranger. Share your favorite family business memory below or tell us what you want to hear about next. We love keeping this conversation rolling!

—Brian